


kaleidoscope

by psychedelia



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Human Michael, M/M, michael lives au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:29:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22518529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psychedelia/pseuds/psychedelia
Summary: The Distortion has always had a fondness for pupils of the Eye, but as Michael, those feelings have gotten far, far messier. And then the Distortion chooses Helen, leaving him a human husk to pick up the scraps of his being and forge a semblance of a life. And the Archivist is there, ready to do this strange dance with him.AU where Michael lives post Mag101 and is taken back to the Institute to heal.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Michael, Michael/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 42
Kudos: 224





	1. i. the distortion.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story that will be split up into three parts. The first is medium, the second is short, and the third... Well, we'll see how monstrous that one gets. In the first part, Michael is still the Distortion, still doing this strange dance around the Archivist AS an entity. 
> 
> Enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> how strange, to dance around the eye and be seen.

The Distortion was always fond of the Eye’s avatars.

There was something so…  _ joyous  _ about making the pupil of the eye think of madness, to trip up the all-seers, to make them doubt their Truth and Rationality. An infuriating  _ fondness _ , but one nonetheless. They were so...antithetical to one another, it was a delight. Always a delight. It was a fondness that lasted right until The Distortion mixed with Michael Shelley, merged  _ wrong _ , merged too tightly and coiled to ever full be  _ just  _ the Distortion or  _ just _ Michael Shelley again. 

Yes, the Distortion was always fond of the Eye’s avatars, but Michael Shelley was not fond of Gertrude Robinson any longer.

Too messy to linger near her, with Michael's betrayal so fresh in their wounded soul now, a messy clawing thing that threatened to overtake them and make them collapse into a heaving pile of bones and limbs and flesh and blood and ink, black, black ink, ink as wet and lying as Gertrude Robinson's pen, to feel the same fond mischief he’d felt for the other Archivists before her time.

No, no. There was no fondness with Ms. Robinson. Not anymore. 

(Except, as with most things in the Distortion’s nature, in the labyrinthian multitudes of spirals and fractals and repetitions and  _ possibility _ , there was, sometimes, and that was when it hurt the most. When Michael’s soul and heart would ache, and ache, and ache, and they would sit in the Insomniac’s house and try not to claw at their face, to tear flesh from their arms in anxious  _ agony _ .)

Oh, when she died, how they wept. A great staticky, shuttering collapse of angerfearjoyrelief. It was convenient for a day or two or three or however long time passes;  _ Michael  _ was so busy emoting that  _ he _ could hardly wrestle control and autonomy from their body, from their purpose.  _ Michael's  _ psychic tears were easy to work through, to continue their purpose, to let their being spiral more and more. But the grief was loud and harsh for days upon days upon days, and they eventually found themself lying in an alley, a gloved hand holding onto tissue spattered with blood. 

And  _ angry _ . So angry.

A new sensation had begun with  _ Michael _ , one of physical limitation. His flesh stretched strangely and it  _ hurt _ , a dull ache that spread through their limbs, and when he grew emotional he'd cough and cough and cough, and their lungs would fill with cold, frigid air, the kind of cold that left them breathless and speechless and thinking of fading Arctic light landing upon long stretches if ice and stairways. 

It was almost a laugh, sometimes. These  _ Michael _ -perks were unique, new, and almost as maddeningly deceitful as the Spiral ought to be. But it was an inward feeling; nothing so satisfying about deceiving  _ yourself  _ with thoughts of icky human weakness. 

Had they always been in the alley? Eventually, Michael found themself able to sit up, and pressed delicately sharp fingers into his cheeks, forcing reality to seep its way into the edges of their consciousness. Maybe so; the second they had felt Gertrude Robinson die, something had shifted in the universe, a great yawning pressure releasing, the tides changing, the see-saw balance upending itself. Michael realized dully that they'd never gone into a door, never went to the house to sit, never went anywhere; Gertrude Robinson died, and Michael had collapsed where they stood, howling and howling into the chaos of the universe. 

_ Well, _ Michael thought, and oh how they loathed this inner monologue, the voice of a sweet simpleton blinded by falsehoods. The voice of a mere boy that was becoming more and more their own, blinding their purpose, blinding their path.  _ That's that.  _

_ The spiral moves ever inwards.  _

\--

“Why are you here?” The Archivist asked, and  _ oh _ , how precious that this  _ Jonathan Sims  _ still didn’t know the potency of his Questions, still couldn’t quite control his Compelling nature. 

Michael had quit pretending it bothered him, and curled strands of hair around and around and around his fingers to avoid shivering as the need to  _ speak  _ filled him Whole as much as the Spiral. 

“You fascinate me,” He replied, simply, because oh, he could talk, and talk, and talk, and spin them both ‘round and ‘round ‘till their heads all but popped off, but they weren’t very sure the Archivist would care for that, and for some reason, something stirred within Michael that said  _ do not make a fool of yourself _ . A deliriously human construction it would seem. Memories bubbled up of awkward coffee shop conversations and nervous hiccups in his breath, bad first impressions, and a lonely, cold bed. 

The Distortion didn’t much care for the cold anymore.

The Archivist peered behind them, into the Endless Hallway of the Door, and Michael shut the door with a decisive kick of the heel, tutting as he did so, leaning closer towards his desk. “No peeking. Wouldn’t want to lose that mind of yours. Such precious eyes are in short commodity these days, it would seem.” Their laugh felt bitter.

Jon merely stared at them for a long, long moment, and when Michael made no movement, still as stone in a way that probably  _ galled _ the poor  _ human  _ Beholding, he waved his hand towards the chair that sat lonesome off to the side of the desk, a thin sheet of dust on it; clearly, he didn’t often have visitors that linger. 

Michael regarded him and thought of escaping back down the long corridors of their Hallway, but it would be a  _ cowardly  _ action, a  _ weak  _ action, and they laughed and laughed and laughed as they slunk into the chair, pulling up their long legs to their chest and pressing their chin to their knees, long hair flowing down to cover them like a blanket. Or perhaps a suit of armor to hide from the scrutinizing gaze of the Archivist. 

“Do you… Want to give a statement?” Jon asked, and his voice cracked a little, uncertainty wracking his small frame into a fit of tension. Michael wondered what it was like to have a frame that didn’t bend and warp and move and terrorize. 

The Archivist was scared. It was obvious. But he did a valiant job of pretending otherwise, and Michael realized with a start that they didn’t  _ want  _ him scared. To pull apart their own intentions and desires was like, ha, pulling worms from the flesh with a corkscrew; maddening, painful, elusive.

“Not particularly,” He replied, and his voice was quiet, quieter than usual. This basement was familiar in a way that hurt, and Who-He-Once-Was bubbled to the surface more readily here. The unreality of the Doors seemed so faraway when compared to the nostalgic familiarity of a place he once called  _ home _ , once stupidly called his  _ calling _ . 

Jon Sims had done well to make it his own. To rob Gertrude of her influence. Not in any conscious, spiteful manner. Oh, no. Gertrude was a cold woman, and her office reflected it. A place of academia. A place to watch. A place to listen. A place far, far away from love. 

The current Archivist was different. The office was lived in, loved,  _ natural _ , and the messy chaos of it thrilled Michael to the core of their being. Jon’s desk was splattered in coffee stains, and a too-full ashtray balanced precariously on a stack of manilla folders. Hastily scribbled notes on fading post-it-notes dotted the myriad of files strewn in a messy, but clearly contained in some manner of organization that only Jon knew, and a whiteboard, not yet hung up but merely leaned against the wall, was strewn in names and dates and locations, the pink dry erase marker smudged in places from where it had been disturbed. 

Michael breathed it all in, and realized all at once that he wasn’t angry to be in this place. Not anymore.

“Do you  _ want  _ me to give a statement?” They asked. 

Jon shrugged. “Not if you don’t want to.” 

And oh, eventually he’d  _ have _ to take statements, he’d  _ need _ it just as much as Michael  _ needed _ the maddening spiral, but for now he was safe, was  _ human _ , had  _ choice. _

Michael smiled.

That seemed to be that. Jon looked at him for a long while longer, and then gave a low hum, and turned back to the files he had been reading before Michael’s arrival. They sit like that, Michael peering quietly at Jon, a sense of contentment, of stillness, of  _ rest _ filling his disjointed soul, until Jon had to leave for lunch, and by the time he returned, Michael ensured they were gone, the door clicked shut solidly behind them, and a sense of  _ wholeness _ filling them in a way that has not been felt since long before Zemlya Sannikova.

\--

Jon scoffed, and says, “You’re nothing but a poor man’s cheshire cat, you know.” 

Michael’s smile grew wider, and though the Distortion once wouldn’t have known this, now they know, now they understand, that it does nothing more than to prove the Archivist’s point. Oh, how  _ Michael _ had a fondness for animated films, and now, the saccharine shortcuts to make mind-bending reality from something-that-could-not-be proved to be a delightful little exercise in connecting the two halves of their being, a connection to their Nature that the poor Michael Shelley did not outright reject in passioned anguish.

“Oh, hm, a cat would do better to deal with my nature than  _ your _ rationalist, meaty little brain.” He laughed, and for once, Jon Sims did not flinch away, and under the haze of the dark library’s lights, there was almost a smile playing upon his lips, the kind of the smile that would never  _ dare _ cross Gertrude Robinson’s features, even when she played the gentle old fool and made Michael Shelley out to be a dimwit.

They stepped closer, and for a moment, they forget about their door, forget about their ploy, and loathe as they were to say it, this…  _ dance _ … of theirs had changed, somehow. The-One-Who-Was-Michael felt a shudder wrack through them; a new sensation had been added to the Spiral.

The Archivist was quiet for a long, long while, so long that Michael assumed he might just not answer at all, but eventually he leaned forward at his desk, a ballpoint pen pointed with accusation at them. “I understand your nature perfectly, I think,” He murmured, and his voice was lost in thought, a weighty, sleepy little thing that lulled Michael’s mind to something almost approaching comfort. 

The role he had been given suited him well, The Distortion thought, and cursed the little voice inside them that was saddened by that revelation. The revelation that soon Jon, too, would be swallowed up by their patron.  _ They _ swallowed down something akin to bile at the thought.

Michael shuddered again at his words, though, their grin lopsided and fierce, their hunger to know, to see, to  _ hear  _ the Archivist describe them, perceive them, categorize them as strong as their own nature to do the opposite for a moment. It almost hurt; they wondered if this was what it was like to be under the gaze of the Eye, and they supposed they  _ were _ under the gaze of the eye now, what with the look Jonathan Sims was giving him. 

The Archivist just did not know his  _ own  _ nature yet. Could not understand the  _ gift _ , the  _ dove  _ being handed to him when Michael chose to be  _ truthful  _ to him.

“Do you?” 

“Sure. You claim you  _ aren’t _ Michael, but I think you still are. Somehow. Just a little.” Jon cocked his head, the tip of his pen brushing against his lip, but whatever he was going to say didn’t matter anymore. The spell was broken, and the Eye no longer held any comfort to him. Them. It. 

Michael wrinkled their nose, the  _ Distortion _ wrinkled their nose, and a childish desire to rip and rip and rip at the Archivist for daring to  _ Read _ him floated up, and they giggled and giggled and giggled all the way back into their door, leaving behind the Archivist to blink in confusion at where he mistepped. 

Good. Let him be confused.

\--

There was something in the water these days, perhaps. Jon’s sullen questions knitted Michael together, stitched the soul in, reminded them, reminded him, of who he once was.  _ Michael Shelley _ had a family once.  _ Michael Shelley  _ had friends once.  _ Michael Shelley _ was once a person who didn’t think he was mad, mad, madder than the hatter.

And now, it seemed, the Distortion had someone to visit. Quarterly, monthly, a fortnight, weekly; who was counting, really?

The Archivist asked him, during one of his visits, what he does with his time. What was his phrasing? Ah, quite a quaint, “How do you pass the time, then?” He sounded  _ bored _ , but they knew better. Jonathan Sims was quite adept at lies, but they were the  _ father  _ of them, and no brusque, artificially deepened voice would trick them. 

They sat for a long, long moment, limbs splayed on the floor of the office, fingers curled into locks of overgrown hair, and the Archivist just watched him, impassive, from behind his glasses. He tried, oh he tried to be impassive, but he wasn’t as good as  _ she  _ was. Hers was genuine, a dispassionate disregard that only Jurgen Leitner or Elias Bouchard could hope to surpass. His was manufactured. A shield, a shell, and Michael wanted to peel it away, layer by layer by layer until the Archivist was splayed before him. But they weren’t the slaughter. It wasn’t their nature. 

“I lose time quite a lot,” He said, and must have startled Jon from his sudden response, for he jumped in his seat, and nodded curiously as he adjusted his glasses. “I’ve told you; something has distorted oh-so-wrongly. The corridors in my mind just don’t make sense.” 

“The doors are wrong?” 

“The doors are wrong.” 

The archivist hummed and leaned back in his chair, pulling out a tin full of rolled cigarettes, and lit one up. The smell was familiar, like one would sense in a dream. Michael Shelley must have been a smoker. They watched Jon for a few minutes, and when the smell became too potent, the cravings in a heart-that-was-not too large (not just for the cigarettes, not just for them, never just for them, the cravings for _him_ ), Michael slipped behind their door and quelled their too-human emotions.


	2. ii. something in between

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> what do you call something that never was?

To be wrenched so suddenly into something else was an agony that, hitherto this point, Michael Shelley assumed couldn't be topped. An ice-cold burning flowed through him whenever he thought about it, and the Entity-That-He-Was-Now would squash the thoughts, twist them together, leave Michael Shelley little more than a husk. 

How to tell yourself apart from the monster in your bones when you have  _ become _ that monster? It was no more easier to explain than the Distortion, and as much as they cried and moaned about how  _ imperfect _ the shell of, ha!, Shelley was, there was some perverse, divine, cosmic hilarity at such a twisting, such a spiral being produced from just their own disjointed self. 

But it was painful, oh yes, it was painful, when they allowed themself to think of the Arctic, of the failure of the Spiral, of the altar, of this impetuous, trustworthy  _ boy _ who had ruined them. 

But it was nothing compared to the pain of Michael Shelley's Undoing. 

To become Whole, even if imperfect, was one thing, and Michael Shelley perhaps fancies that he'll never not once travel to the cold again. But to be  _ wrenched apart at the seams _ \--

Oh, how the Distortion laughs. 

The door is locked. It’s locked, it’s locked and  _ it can’t be locked _ , and the panic that bubbles up inside of him is wholly his own,  _ his _ own, even as the Distortion still moves and skitters about in his bones, a laugh that echoes deep in his marrow as it realizes what is happening.

The Archivist is quiet, fear flowing through him in nearly audible waves. When Michael looks at him, it's as though he's seeing through a kaleidoscope, a multi-faced, colorful distortion of light, color, reality. Oh, how the colors dance upon his flesh and make him look human. Oh, how the light plays upon the pupils of his eye and one can almost see the all-seeing all-knowing silhouette of the Beholder. He looks to Michael, in this moment, and so too like the kaleidoscope, he feels a multitude of emotions crash down upon him like waves on a cliff side. He whispers, "Oh, oh _no_ ," in a voice that is more Michael Shelley than has existed for years, and for just a moment, before his Undoing, he wishes he could reach out and touch the Archivist, anything, anyone solid, flesh upon flesh and a reminder that he _was_. 

Part of him is relieved. The door unlocks and he has a moment to think,  _ finally _ , finally death will overtake him and he can rest, rest in an eternal slumber where he isn’t  _ himself  _ and he isn’t the thing he’s  _ become  _ and he isn’t an abomination borne from the both of them, a cyclical rotary engine of misery. 

_ She  _ overtakes him, and her eyes are focused, solid, and he knows, already, that she’ll make a better avatar for What-He-Once-Was. He almost  _ thanks _ her. Finally, this body can _rot_. Finally, it's over. Finally he won't see the cold, cruel glint of Gertrude Robinson's eyes refracting against the polar ice whenever he closes his eyes. Finally. Finally.

But something is wrong. Her fingers slide into him, remove It's presence, leave him empty, and as he crumples to the floor, bleeding, crying. Tears grow sticky in his eyes, and he hasn't _cried_ in years, he hasn't been _him_ in years, and he’s still  _ alive _ . He doesn’t disintegrate, fall apart, finally  _ rest _ . 

He feels a pain he only felt once before, but in reverse.

How could it be so cruel, as to wrench him apart like this? Leave him shattered, broken,  _ human _ , on the floor of the Hallways? How could he not scream out in anguish as It left and joined Helen, oh,  _ perfect  _ Helen, Helen who isn't  _ freakish _ , who isn't  _ foolish,  _ who isn't  _ him _ . Useless as always, poor piteous Michael Shelley is.

He  _ screams _ in anguish and the Archivist finds him, pulls him close in confusion, and the pain of his touch is enough to make his awareness of himself as fuzzy as it has been for the past Who-Knows-How-Many-Years. But the Archivist  _ holds _ him, and pulls him, and struggles with him, and for a moment he feels  _ seen _ , flesh upon flesh, and it almost makes up for it all. He focuses on the touch of the Archivist's palm, soft from the Stranger's cruel captivity, and between bleary tears, he sees four, five, six Archivist's, all looming above him. 

_ How _ _odd,_ is Michael's only thought, as he sees fear fall across the shadows of the Archivist's face, a shiver run through his body. An Archivist that feels so deeply he would be willing to pick up the broken body of one who only minutes ago was enraptured with an anger so fierce he was going to _die_ by their hand. _How odd_. The Archivist speaks to Helen, and almost absentmindedly brushes one of those soft hands through Michael's sweat-and-blood-laden hair. 

Michael breathes.

And then--

And then the Archivist takes  _ her _ Door without hesitation. Nevermind Michael's Distortion wanted to kill him. 

Jonathan Sims follows through a Door that would otherwise kill him, turn him to madness, but _doesn't_ , and in one act of kindness, he takes Michael with him, the strain of his muscles evident when he tries to pull Michael into his arms, clumsy and messy and _oh-so_ human all at once. 

He screams in anguish as he's guided through the door, and does one more foolish, utterly foolish, thing-- he sleeps in the impossibility of the hallway, and knows deep in bones that don't waver and crack anymore that if he wakes again, that is his punishment. 


	3. iii. michael shelley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> to pull oneself together when there was nothing to begin with

He sleeps. He sleep and sleeps and sleeps, and when he wakes up, Michael Shelley sits uncomfortably in the bones of a body that has not settled in years, and so he sleeps some more, and ignores the Archivist’s whispering worry to his assistants, and then--

Michael finds himself smoking, leaning on the outside exterior to the Institute. He can’t quite remember coming outside, but if his shaking hands are any indication (he looks away, he looks away, he can’t stand the sight of his hands these days), he doesn’t want to remember anyhow. 

The tobacco is cut with something herbal, and it soothes Michael’s mind as much as brings him back to the present. The Archivist-- No, Jon, he prefers to be called Jon by the likes of him-- spends so much time rolling his own, eyes spacey and glassy, his hands moving in a rote motion, like a relaxing stim, and Michael has watched him do it both as the Distortion and as the husk he is now, and in both states, he finds the motion captivating. 

Smoke curls above him in the chilly, foggy air, spiralling and spiralling and spiralling into the atmosphere. With all the smoke, one would think the sky was made of nothing but spirals, ever curling inwards, smaller and smaller and smaller and yet infinitely big, an eon of twists and turns. His hands shake harder, and he curls over himself where he stands, wanting to be smaller, closer together, denser.

Jon had offered him to stay in the Archives, mumbling something about Martin sleeping here when the worms came, an Michael had taken him up on the offer. He can remember boring out a worm from the flesh of poor Sasha, his fingers long, and in the moment he’d-- they’d-- felt so curious, so fascinated, so  _ piteous  _ of the new Archival assistant. 

They’d wanted to whisper, “ _ Don’t you know what happens to assistants around here?” _ They’d wanted to feed on her, feed her to the Hallways. They’d wanted to watch the worms devour her, but even as the Distortion-That-Was-Him, they’d never much liked the Hive.

“Oh! Erm, Michael!” 

He’s jerked violently from his thoughts, and he blinks back to the present. The cigarette has all but burnet out as he spaced out, and he lets it fall to the pavement, crushing it with the heel of his sandal. 

Martin stands in front of him, and Michael admits they’d underestimated him, and now he gives the man a quick look over, the kind that tends to make people uncomfortable. And sure enough, Martin squirms, a look of fear flashing over his eyes. But he doesn’t look away, and there’s a resoluteness to him that would have made the Distortion smile. 

He wonders, now, how long that bravery will last under the watchful gaze of Elias. 

They’d barely spoken. As was Jon’s way, he’d showed up with Michael after Helen’s Door, had barely explained a word other than to impress he wouldn’t hurt them, and then went back to work, leading Michael to the room he could stay. And then Michael had slept, actually  _ slept _ , his body too weak even to give him dreams of fractal hellscapes.

(And he’d thought, thought so much once he woke, his cheeks tear-stained and his hands, so small, digging into the meat of his cheeks as though pain would be the only grounding point. Helen’s face haunted him, haunts him, their expression placid and perfect and  _ whole _ and Michael had thought  _ Why couldn’t I be perfect, too?  _ He then dry-heaved for a half an hour, nothing but bile in his weak stomach, disgust and revulsion at himself wracking his skinny frame.)

“Hello, Mr. Blackwood,” He says now, exhaling a drag and following the curls of smoke once more; he mentally curses how singsongy his voice has become, an unbroken habit that at least, blessedly, doesn’t have the Distortion’s static intents layered behind it any longer. 

Martin has a drink holder full of coffee cups in his hands, and when Michael eyes them, Martin grins sheepishly. “I, erm, didn’t realize you’d be-- Are you still…  _ it _ ?” He cuts himself off halfway, a jerking, stuttering sound, and Michael has a moment to feel approval for his matter-of-factness, before the smile falls away into a sullen little thing. 

“I am blessedly, wretchedly human these days.” 

Martin shifts from foot to foot a moment, and then says, “What, erm, happened? I-I mean, Jon gave us the  _ basics _ , but he won’t-- Elaborate, and I mean, no offense, but you’re kind of the elephant in the room at the moment.”

Michael laughs and ignores Martin’s flinch; he’ll have to get used to that, he supposes. Everyone afraid of his amusement. “I’m  _ human _ , not an elephant.” 

“Right.” 

He eyes the drink holder again. By rote familiarity only, he almost wants to cryptically give a non-answer, a riddle, something to break the poor lad’s mind and leave him alone. But that’s what he  _ was _ , when they were powerful. He isn’t that, anymore, and talking to another soul, as himself, as  _ Michael _ , gives him more than a little satisfaction. 

“Give me one of those and I’ll tell you.”

The chill of the city is getting to him; clothed in nothing but a cardigan and sandals to keep him shielded from the cold, his skin is blistering out into goose pimples, and it begins to freeze more than just his body. He doesn’t want to space out again because he was too careless to avoid the cold. He gestures towards the door, and again ignores the flinch when Martin follows the movement of his hand.

“Okay, um, sure. You can-- well I guess you can have mine.” 

Michael pulls the door and allows Martin to walk in first, shivering as they step inside the lobby. Martin fumbles with the drink holder for a second and then, as he holds out one of the cups with a clumsiness that surprises Michael more with the fact that he  _ doesn’t  _ upend everything onto the polished floors, he asks haltingly, holding the coffee up like a makeshift, cartoonish microphone, “So um, statement of Michael Shelley? Ah, shit, that was dumb.” 

He laughs anyways, and takes the coffee, careful not to touch Martin with his fingers. Something tells him the conversation will be over if he pushes his boundaries, and Martin is already as skittish as a feral rabbit at the moment.

“It’s simple, really, Mr. Blackwood.” 

“Uh, Martin. You can call me Martin.” 

Michael blinks at him in surprise, looking down at his expression. It’s guarded, though, a careful mask that he might not have noticed as a conscious, skilled thing in his previous form. Oh the arrogance the Distortion has. 

At his surprise, Martin shrugs, and almost drops the coffees again as they walk along the lobby to the lift. “I mean. If you’re gonna be living in the Archive for… a while, I don’t see the need for formalities.” 

“...Indeed,” Michael replies, and gives a small  _ huh _ sound. “Fascinating.” 

Martin presses the button for down. 

“Well, then. It’s simple, Martin. I was the Distortion. The Distortion was me. We were Michael but not truly. Michael should be  _ dead _ . I should be dead. But I’m not. But neither am I the Distortion any longer.  _ It _ chose another avatar. One I-- they. Hm.  _ I  _ trapped in my Hallway.”

The lift opens, and Martin blinks owlishly at him. “That didn’t make any sense.” 

He lets the doors close before he speaks again, and he feels exhausted again. Lonely.

“Michael Shelley shouldn’t exist, and yet here I am. Is that better?”

“I suppose, it’s just-- It’s--”

  
“Complicated. I know.” 

The lift ride up is silent but for the whirring of the machinery, humming as it takes them to the belly of the Eye. Michael wonders if it  _ hurt _ , before, for them to be here, but he can’t remember. Sniffing, he wonders if it’s beginning to hurt Martin; there’s a stench about him that belongs neither to the Spiral nor the Eye, a stench that churns deep in his chest. 

Martin catches him watching, and squints warily at him. “What?” 

Michael shakes his head and shifts his gaze towards the metallic doors. “D’ya think one of the girls in the office might have a hair tie?” 

He gets a slow blink in return, a stuttering motion that makes Michael almost envision the gears in Martin’s head turning one way, creaking to a halt, and furiously cranking the other way, so taken aback by the sudden change in topic. 

“I-I suppose? I mean-- Probably.” His laugh is nervous. 

“Haven’t had a chance to cut it in…” He sighs dramatically, his voice lilting high and lofty, “Oh, well, y’see, my damn barber is on some Russian island that just doesn’t seem to exist anymore.” 

And,  _ oh,  _ that gets Martin laughing, a proper laugh, and it sends Michael into a fit of his own. The sound is joyous, taken aback,  _ together _ , not the lonely sort of frustrated outlets he’s let himself spiral into since waking up. And from the sounds of it, it’s been a while since Martin’s been able to laugh either, and by the time the lift doors open to the library, there’s tears in their eyes and their stomachs ache, and they both know better than to ever speak of this moment, but it’s a moment nonetheless. 

Michael certainly hopes it’s a moment that helps him, when Peter Lukas claims his inevitable hold over Martin Blackwood.

\--

  
  


What a strange conniption, Michael finds out, to have been a person, rendered a nonperson, and then returned to a state of mortality. When you’ve been dead for years, by all accounts, how do you return? How can he, when all that he was led up to the great Failure? 

Michael jokes of elephants, but the true elephant in the room looms over them as oppressive as the eye; Elias Bouchard. 

If he thinks, really thinks (and gives himself a migraine in the process, his hands shaking and his eyes flooding with tears in the saferoom, door locked to keep prying Archivists from finding him in such a state), Michael can remember Elias. Not as much as the deep resentmentlovefearbetrayal that coils in his belly at the thought of… her, but still; a presence nonetheless. 

He knows it’s only a matter of time before he’s called up to those offices, and sure enough, on day two of his awakening, there’s a  _ pressure _ in his skull, a probing, curious and light, that leaves static buzzing through his ears. He wonders if anyone else could feel this or if, once again, he alone is touched with these sensitivities in the way only an ex-avatar could be. 

It’s off, though, penetrating only finger-light across his mind, and there’s a whip of frustration added to it. Michael wonders if it’s hard, but brushes the thought needlessly away; if anyone’s mind is meek and pliable, it would be his, and a startling, petty show of arrogance to assume that someone like Elias would have a hard time getting to  _ him  _ is a foolhardy game.

Regardless, he knows what it means; Elias is curious. And better to meet the man than to endure anymore of this clinical, needless probing. 

Michael stabs the palms of his hands against his eyes, hoping they don’t look too puffy, but realizing in the end that he doesn’t care. After all, whatever pathetic biological socializations deemed red, crying eyes a  _ weakness _ won’t phase Elias Bouchard. What use is appearances when he can see into Michael’s very being? 

And frankly, what use does  _ Michael  _ have for appearances when he’s so long been a multi-faceted, impossible thing, shapes and size and color and dimension and plausibility thrown so far out the window as to not even exist?

Even so, Michael pulls his hair back (hair tie courteously if haltingly given to him by Melanie), and plucks absently at the hem of his sweater a moment. He’ll have to request money, or-- Or something, to get back on his feet. He can only keep borrowing so much from the Archivist, who’s frame is far smaller than his and who’s taste in clothes is decidedly not the same as Michael’s.

“Where are you going?” Jon asks without looking up, when Michael steps into the office. His hair is tucked behind his ears, a pesky strand falling in front of his glasses that he brushes away when Michael moves closer to the door. 

“I have a meeting, I think,” He says, and watches as the Archivist’s eyes glaze over, looking at something beyond him, maybe nothing at all. 

“Hm. I suppose you do,” He says, and in that faraway voice of his, Michael wonders if he realizes what he’s becoming.

But it’s a painful thought, so he squashes it down and says, with a put-upon tone of a spoiled brat, “Maybe he’ll give me an allowance to buy clothes. I’m  _ oh so very  _ hard to say no to.” He even adds in a little pout, and despite himself, Jon lets out a huff of a laugh, the tension that was building dissipating they merely turned the lid of a bottle of Coke and let all the carbonation out.

“You’re funnier than I expected,” Jon says, and Michael doesn’t respond, instead turning to escape the conversation that’s about to happen; finger light touches on his thoughts continue, confusion wrapping itself up in the frustration now. He can’t entertain Jon’s  _ musings _ right now.

The lift up to Elias’ office is quiet, and by the time he arrives, the probing has ceased, and as he enters the office, without knocking, Elias doesn’t look the scantest bit surprised. 

“You wanted to see me,” Michael says, and sits down in the chair in front of Elias’ desk. 

Elias presses his lips together and  _ hms _ , then says, “Yes I suppose I did. What is it you’re calling yourself these days?” 

“Michael Shelley.” 

“That’s a bit  _ individual _ , don’t you think?” 

“Mr. Bouchard--”

“What are you playing at,  _ Mr. Shelley _ ?”

Michael sucks in a breath, the tension of so many  _ eyes  _ on him almost overwhelming him. Oh, the days when he could just escape through the back of a Door-That-Not-Was are long behind him, it seems.

“You can’t pull it from my head? I’ve heard the others whispering about that, you know. I do wonder if you used to do that to  _ me _ .” He doesn’t quite glare, but his expression isn’t kind, either, and he has to wonder if Elias is used to such head-on confrontation. Musn’t, because Elias’ mouth twists in disapproval, and it’s all Michael can do not to laugh where he sits. He digs his nails into the palms of his hands. 

Elias speaks carefully, slowly, no tumbling or twisting, no room for anything but that which  _ is _ and always  _ will  _ be. In a way, it’s a comfort-- there’s logic in Elias, comfort. A steadfast dedication to reality. 

Too bad Michael knows reality is merely the outer shell just begging to be caved in by nothing more than the egg tooth of something bigger than them all. 

“I admittedly find your story-- as well as Jon’s-- hard to believe, as you are not so easily Seen,” He says, and when he catches Michael’s gaze, it’s as though he freezes him in place, all semblances of squirming, aimless energy locked rigid in the chair. “And from what I  _ can _ see, the Spiral still dances lazily around your corneas.”

Michael opens his mouth to respond, but is immediately shut up by a resolute finger jerking itself into the air. His vision goes hazy, and for a moment Elias is covered in eyes of all colors, watching, boring into him, observing, all manner of intent and voyeuristic pleasure wrapped up in his skin. A giggle bubbles it’s way out of him, and he squeezes his eyes shut when Elias scowls at him, not wanting to lose himself  _ here _ , in front of the only person who could give him asylum; when he opens them, the eyes are gone, and Elias is just a man again, his expression stern, no playfulness lingering in his eyes.

Finger still held in the air, he continues. “But, I’ve seen the Distortion elsewhere, and Marked as you are, you are  _ empty _ , from what I can see.” 

The words rattle about Michael’s brain for a moment.  _ Empty, empty, empty _ , and he feels himself wanting to curl over himself, hide beneath his hair, but Elias’ gaze keeps him frozen in his seat, sitting straight, and he refrains from the instinct to rebel against the force that holds him. 

(He knows better, anyways, to resist. It just makes it easier to slip, slip, slip like clay beneath the molder’s hands, and he’s not quite sure yet what machinations Elias yet labors under.)

“You are, against the odds, Michael Shelley again. What a strange gift to be given from something like the Distortion.” 

At that, Michael can’t help it; he laughs again, and this time, Elias lets him, his head cocking curiously to the side, as though appraising him as  _ Michael _ for the first time. Maybe he is. “It’s no gift, Mr. Bouchard,” He gasps out, and after what seems an eon of contemplation, Elias removes his hold on Michael and lets him curl over himself, legs folding up into the chair and his hands wrapping around his knees. 

No professionalism in sight, but then again, Elias isn’t exactly conducting an interview. Or is he? Despite the mysticism, the Entities, the-- the  _ everything _ that stands as a marker of Elias’ hand in the rituals and undoings of the world, he’s still a businessman in the end, and in the end, Michael Shelly is under his protection and nearly weeping in his office chair. 

_ Pathetic _ , screams every voice he’s ever heard, all at once, a choir of misery, and he rakes a shaky hand through his hair, pulling some of the loose strands that have fallen from his makeshift bun out of his face.

“No, no, I suppose it’s no gift,” Elias muses, still watching him, still judging him. He sighs and leans back. “But, despite its scars upon your psyche, your knowledge is valuable, and-- as an aberration in what we know of avatars, a useful asset.” 

Michael blinks. “Useful?” 

Elias gives a slow nod. “I can hardly breach your mind without extensive use of my own abilities; from what I’ve seen of Jon’s work, he, too, is befuddled by his apparent lack of Willing you to speak. If this…. Shield extends to the other Entities we’re working against, namely, the Stranger…” He trails off pointedly, but Michael understands perfectly. 

A fury fills him, but so too, does a deepset feeling of pride. He’s  _ useful _ . He’s  _ wanted _ . He’s  _ valuable _ . 

“I’m going to offer you a position in the Archives.”

Michael smiles then, the pieces clicking together in one fell swoop. “It’s not an offer.” 

Elias smiles back. “No, it’s not.” 

But it’s this, or to the streets, where he’s no doubt to be picked up by any manner of creature sworn to any manner of entity, ready to sniff him and tear him apart and see why the strange, strange little Spiral decided to leave behind its temporary cocoon in pursuit of a much greater metamorphosis. It’s either swearing himself to the Institute, to Elias, to-- (to Jon), or he’s  _ nothing _ but the shell that he should be. 

And in some small, cramped cave in his mind, there’s a glimmer of satisfaction, cruel satisfaction that the Spiral chose to ally itself with the Beholding and now he, too, will be a part of that. 

“Alright,” He says, and Elias’ smile only grows wider.

\--

Jon is furious. He doesn’t find out until the next day, a fact that has Michael giggling and laughing before he even has a chance to spit out his acid insults. Oh, oh, the Eye that watches doesn’t even  _ know  _ he’s got a new coworker until the next day. It’s rich. 

“You’re joking.”

Fury floods Jon’s eyes at the laugh, and Michael spreads his fingers thin through his hair, and Jon’s gaze darts to the smattering of ink rising from pinky to wrist on his left hand. His expression stutters, and with what appears great consternation, he closes his eyes and breathes in, breathes out, and sits back down heavily in his office chair. 

“You’re not joking.” It’s not a question, but resignation.

Michael stands in front of his desk, shoulders stiff, because there’s nothing else to do but wait out the Archivist’s little tantrum. 

He isn’t in the mood to guide the Archivist through it all. Painful enough when They were trying to twist and twist and twist, let alone tired, human, resigned. Adrift. 

“What do you care?”

Shock ripples through the room; once again, Michael is struck by how little Jon realizes about his changing Being. And Michael hardly knows anything that isn't conflicted with spiraling, twisting confusion. 

Jon opens and closes his mouth once, twice, three times. Finally, he says, "I do care, Michael." His voice is soft, quiet, almost a mockery of what once could have been pure sympathy. They're all far too gone, these days, to truly be emotionally vulnerable, and even here, Michael can feel the shimmers of deception. 

Or maybe he's just caught the Archivist's malignant paranoia. 

"Why?" It comes out harsher than he intended, rough and almost growling around the edges. An emotional intensity that would make the Distortion weep in embarrassment. 

"I- I don't--" The Archivist rubs the bridge of his nose, pushing up his glasses to his forehead as he does so. "I don't know." 

Michael narrows his eyes, and the room feels thick, heavy, oppressive. As the Distortion, they could feel the threads of reality warping, wrapping around the fabrics of the universe (sometimes spiders' silk, unnatural but left alone), and just a pluck here or there could mutate, morph,  _ change  _ what Should be and Is. Sometimes, those threads need to be plucked-- two diverging roads. 

He can feel that in the air, and after a second's pause he snaps, "I think you do know."

Jon jerks his gaze back to Michael and frowns, the curious little downturn of his lips that only happens when he's unhappy with the truth.

"Maybe." His eyes catch on something in the unused chair, and Michael glances just in time to see the tape recorder sitting pristine, their conversation captured for the Watcher. 

Jon sighs. "Yes, fine, perhaps…. Pe-Perhaps  _ some _ of your… circumstances give me hope for myself."

Michael snorts, and turns to leave, ignoring the Archivist’s protests of “Where are you going?” and “Michael?!” He turns around before he slides out of the office, and says, “My circumstances are of  _ ruination _ , Archivist, not  _ hope _ ."

He won't stand as a testament to Jonathan Sim's humanity. He can hardly, it seems, stand as a testament to his _own_ humanity, a fact that pools heavily in his gut. 

Weight hasn't constricted him like this in years. As the Distortion, they were fluid matter, moving and twisting and spinning and everything under the sun but _stable_. Anything under the grand cosmos but _stagnant_. To be stagnant was to have an identity. To have an identity was to _be_ , and to _be_ is everything that the Distortion was _not_. 

Now, Michael feels as though his skin will never be warm, feels as though he weighs more than the weight of Atlas' burden. It's suffocating, and he realizes with a start that his breathing is _wrong_. 

He closes the door behind him and tries not to let the shake in his legs (from rage at Jon’s presumptions, from fear at disappointing him) keep him from walking straight and confident. But keeping his body upright means his fingers shake and his eyes start to wander, vision blurring and the reality of the library seeming to fall wayside ( _ Is,  _ but just left of  _ is,  _ too, a sliding scope as though photographs shoved into filters), and he doesn’t notice he’s walked into someone until he  _ has _ , and Martin’s  _ oof _ is all he gets before he’s pulling himself backwards, hands curling into his chest to avoid touching, hurting, prying,  _ ripping _ . 

“Hey-- H-Hey,” Martin says, and his eyes are blown wide, clearly spooked, but there’s a calmness about him as he takes in Michael’s appearance. 

Clearly, it’s not a very ‘stable’ one, and Michael can only imagine what he looks like. Breathing heavily, scared of disappointing everyone, scared of falling away to dust. Scared of moving out of place just slightly and being smited down by yet another Entity that has its hold over him. Hair messy and unkempt, hands curled into protective fists. 

Martin blinks at him slowly, and Michael watches in trepidation for him to yell, or diminish, or scoff and turn away, but he just narrows his eyes and say, “It’s uh-- Hey, d’ya wanna go out for coffee? I’ll pay?” 

Michael realizes he doesn't know where he was going to _go_ , until Martin's voice became reality. 

It’s a question, but it’s not, and Michael’s fluttering chest stabilizes by the time he realizes he’s being pulled towards the lift doors in a stunning backwards repetition of what he did just days earlier, and despite himself, thoughts of Jon and Elias ooze out of him like water on the shore, Martin’s grip on his wrist firm and stable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this "Triptych" is now going to be a lot longer. AKA, I lied about the length. AKA AKA I got carried away. Enjoy this segment.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on [tumblr.](https://whitmanic.tumblr.com).


End file.
